View from the upper balcony of the Sorg Opera House.
I’ve been working on scheduling some new locations for this fall’s series of Photography Workshops, and think I’ve gotten some great ones. First up, the Sorg Opera House in Middletown, Ohio on September 1st. Attendees will be able to explore and photograph the 1891 opera house as well as an adjacent building and ballroom.
Next is the Orpheum Theatre in New Bedford, MA on September 22. The Orpheum was the first theater profiled on After the Final Curtain, and I’m really excited about the workshop. Attendees will be able to photograph the auditorium, ballroom and shooting range.
The Art Theatre (formerly the Olympia and a bunch of other names) in Worcester, MA is the next photo workshop on October 6, 2018. It’s a smaller one, so sessions are limited to 6 people.
(And don’t worry, all of that insulation has been removed.)
View from the fake box seats at the Paramount Theatre in Springfield, MA.
Last up is a return to the Paramount Theatre in Springfield, MA on October 27, 2018. I’m co-hosting this one again with Matthew Christopher of Abandoned America. Work will have started on the roof by the time this workshop takes place, so hopefully that will stop the deterioration of this fantastic building.
That’s it for now! I’m planning on doing another one at the Everett Square Theatre this fall, but I’m just waiting to confirm a date. There may be one more surprise one as well.
The Robins Theatre in Warren, Ohio is currently being restored and is scheduled to reopen in 2020. I’ve been documenting the progress and put together a short video tour. Look for an in depth post on the Robins soon!
I’ve been going through some of my older posts and expanding the text as well as re-editing the photos. Check out the second redone post – The Kenosha Theatre in Kenosha, WI.
I’m happy to announce that I’ll be at the 10th annual Millbrook Literary Festival in Millbrook, New York on May 19th, 2018. I’ll be signing copies of my books in the main tent from 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM. I grew up a few towns over from Millbrook, and might have snuck into the abandoned Bennett School a time or two.
The Arcade Theatre in Los Angeles, California originally opened on September 26, 1910 as the Pantages Theatre. It was designed in the Beaux-Arts style by the Morgan & Walls architecture firm and was a part of the Pantages Vaudeville Circuit. Morgan & Walls are also known for designing the Mayan and El Capitan Theaters in Los Angeles. The location of the 1,400 seat theater helped to make downtown Los Angeles an entertainment destination, and 11 more theaters opened in the area between 1910 and 1931.
The Arcade was the first theater on the Pantages Vaudeville circuit in southern California.
Vaudeville singer and comedian Sophie Tucker appeared at the Arcade’s opening day celebration as part of her first West Coast tour. Other opening day acts included a one act pantomime called “A Hot Time in Dogville,” singer Maurice Burkhart, a musical comedy sketch by the Lelliott Brothers, and the Yalto Duo dancers. On Christmas Day 1913, an unusual wedding took place on the theater’s stage — Napoleon, a vaudeville-performing and silent film starring chimpanzee “married” Sally, another chimpanzee from the E&R Jungle Zoo. The theater closed in December of 1921 so that a photoplayer, an automatic mechanical orchestra to accompany silent films, could be installed.
Souvenir programs from the theater’s opening day were printed on silk.
Pantages sold the building in 1925 to the Dalton Brothers, who owned the nearby Folles Theater. It was renamed Dalton’s Theatre (or Dalton’s Broadway) until 1928 when the name was changed to the Arcade Theatre, after the Broadway Spring Arcade Building, which is located directly next to the theater. The Dalton Brothers renovated the Arcade in 1932, and reopened it as a burlesque house on July 30, 1932. Lou Costello (of Abbott and Costello) was one of the comedians who performed at the theater during this time.
All of the seats were removed after the theater closed in 1992.
In 1938, famed theater architect S. Charles Lee remodeled the interior of the theater, which reduced the seating to 800, changed the foyer to the Moderne style, and updated the building’s facade. On August 22, 1941 the Arcade became a Telenews Theatre, which ran newsreels from 8AM to 3AM the next day. The opening newsreel was called “This World Besieged,” and was about World War II. This change lasted only four months, and by mid-November 1941 the Arcade was back to showing feature films.
The mural in the center of the proscenium has long been painted over.
The Arcade was an independent theater in the 1960s and 1970s. In the early 1970s, keno was played at the theater every night at 8PM. Metropolitan Theatres ran the Arcade as a grindhouse (a theater that ran three or four different films on repeat) until it closed in 1992. The following year the lobby was converted into a retail space. It is currently an electronics store, and the stage is used as a storage space for the store’s inventory. There have been a few proposals to restore the theater, including one that would have it and two other theaters turned into a restaurant and multiplex complex, but none have come to pass.
Stan Laurel (of Laurel and Hardy) performed at the Arcade in 1919.During the first burlesque show someone threw a stink bomb on stage and injured one of the dancers.
Yesterday I attended a photography workshop at the Strand Theatre in New Bedford, Massachusetts hosted by Bryan Buckley of Vanishing New England. I love hosting workshops, but it was very nice to be on the other side of one this time. The Strand Theatre originally opened as the Vien Theatre in 1905, and is going to be turned into a community center in the near future.
Capitol Theatre, Fall River, MA.
While I was in the area I also visited the former Capitol Theatre in Fall River, MA. The Capitol originally opened on February 2, 1926. I believe it closed in the 1960s, but haven’t been able to verify that yet. Part of the orchestra level was converted into a bowling alley sometime after it closed. The proscenium and organ chambers were removed so that a large steel support beam could be installed as part of the conversion.
I’ll be posting full write ups on both of these theaters very soon.
